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Google Challenging Proposition 8
theodp writes "Coming the day after it announced layoffs and office closures, Google's California Supreme Court filing arguing for the overturn of Proposition 8, which asks the Court not to harm its ability to recruit and retain employees, certainly could have been better timed. Google's support of same-sex marriage puts it on the same page with Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft's man in Silicon-Valley, who joined other tech leaders last October to denounce Prop 8 in a full-page newspaper ad. But oddly, Microsoft HR Chief Mike Murray cited religious beliefs for his decision to contribute $100,000 to 'Yes On 8', surprising coming from the guy who had been charged with diversity and sensitivity training during his ten-year Microsoft stint. "
As a gay software engineer, I would be a lot more interested in moving to Massachusetts or Connecticut partially because they allow for same-sex marriage.
"Proposition 8 was a California ballot proposition in the November 4, 2008, general election. It changed the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to opposite-sex couples and eliminated same-sex couples' right to marry, thereby overriding portions of the ruling of In re Marriage Cases."
Wikipedia Source
Google's argument can be summarized as such: The law deters gays and lesbians from taking up residence in California, which is where the majority of Google's employees work. Thus the law is detrimental to Google in that its gay/lesbian employees may want to leave and prospective employees who happen to be gay/lesbian will have more hoops to jump through to work for Google.
This is particularly bad timing for such a thing as Google is in the process of laying off workers (though it is a very small number - something like 100) and if they are in a position where they have to layoff employees, why are they even talking about hiring employees? Of course the answer to this is simple - Google hopes to grow and something like this will be pertinent in the future - but some people are very shortsighted and will not recognize this.
It affects lots of things, such as adoption, hospital visits, and survivorship. how'd you like to live with someone for 40 years and lose your house when he dies because you can't automatically inherit the place of residence? There are lots of benefits to marriage that gays are being denied.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I agree. Bump this post up.
Let churches do church stuff. Let the state do state stuff. The two rarely need to meet, and definitely do not need to meet on this topic. Marriage is a religious pact between two people and their beliefs. Civil-union is a legal provided by the state to give any consenting adults right of attorney, inheritance, and other legal protections.
They get hung up on the word marriage.
In reality, marriage under the law and marriage in a religious institution are different things with the same name. However, because many people do both things at once and because they don't distinguish between the two things, they get conflated.
Actually, judging by semiconductor, which is a mix 90% mix of Asian/Indian, 10% White (of which a lot are european immigrants).
And by software, when I dropped by the MS campus in Mountain View I was amazed to see the huge number of Russians and Indians.
High tech jobs have a lot of country to country moving.
What has struck me as ironic is Christians citing monogamous heterosexual marriage as something ordained by God, when the monogamous part of it was in fact pressed upon the Hebrews and other subjected people of the Roman Empire.
Marriage was first and foremost about kinship ties and property rights in most civilizations, not about procreation.
This law prevents Google from giving same sex partners benefits for the same price. Insuring two unmarried people is far more expensive than two married people.
We are not talking about a law here, we're talking about a constitutional amendment.
The courts have no authority to change a state's constitution.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Apparently CA has two different types of amendment procedures with one having a MUCH lower barrier to pass.
One is simple referendum (and thus just needs 50% of the vote) while the other is a more involved process that requires legislative support.
The court case is going over which type of amendment prop-8 was and thus was the method used to pass it valid.
The court case is going over which type of amendment prop-8 was and thus was the method used to pass it valid.
Prop 8 was introduced as an amendment: it added language to the California state constitution. Amendments require only a simple majority vote to pass.
The other type of constitutional change is a revision: striking language or significantly changing the language in the state constitution. A revision requires a 2/3 majority vote to pass.
Because the California state constitution already has an equal protection clause (the clause which the California Supreme Court used to declare gay marriage legal), the addition of Prop 8 to the constitution would seem to place it at contradiction with itself.
What the opponents are arguing is that for Prop 8 to be valid it would have to be a revision: striking the language in the equal protection clause and adding the language that the banners of gay marriage want.
Convincing 2/3 of Californians to strike the equal protection clause from their constitution is a much more daunting task than getting 50% of them to say, ick, we don't like gay marriage. Ban it please.
If Google wants to offer insurance benefits that include gay partners, well they can do so.
That's not quite true -- although as a state issue, Prop 8 doesn't have anything to do with this. Like hundreds of other benefits, health insurance has a FEDERAL tax benefit tied to marriage. Even if an employer offers insurance to a same-sex partner, that partner has to pay tax on the full retail value of that insurance, as if it were income. Only a married partner can receive health insurance without the additional tax burden. Because insurance on the retail market is so expensive, the additional tax often makes the insurance unaffordable (as I can attest from experience).
That's one reason the marriage issue is so important to same-sex couples. Many federal benefits are tied up with the act of marriage, in law.
U.S. Self-identifying:
[1] http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
[2] "The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS found that 2.8 percent of the male, and 1.4 percent of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. See Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994). This amounts to nearly 4 million openly gay men and 2 million women who identify as lesbian.[8]" http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/478685.html
Homosexual Groups Back Off From "10 Percent" Myth A coalition of leading pro-homosexual activist groups has now admitted in a legal brief that only "2.8 percent of the male, and 1.4 percent of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual."[1] http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=69577
*Second, sexual behavior researcher, Tom Smith of the University of Chicago authored a study two years ago entitled "Adult Sexual Behavior in 1989: Number of Partners Frequency and Risk." His study resulted in a figure of "less than 1% exclusively homosexual."
Wait, did you just seriously, and with a straight face use a link to "Rapture Ready" to support an argument? RR is NOT a trusted source of information for anyone other than those who are expecting that they are going to vanish from the earth to sit with Jesus while the rest of us fight a massive war, apparently for the entertainment of god and his new raptured buddies.
Oh, but it gets better. That page seems to just draw from a page at traditionalvalues.org, entitled Homosexual Urban Legends, The Series. Now, this charming piece of work is by "The Traditional Values Coalition", which is catagorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
Might as well post links to Stormfront.org for "the real truth about blacks and jews".
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
You know, most people grow out of saying "I know you are but what am I?" as a rebuttal by the time they can type....
Fine though. This is from your link:
So let's take a look at a few of the poor innocent folks that the SPLC is so wrongly vilifying.
Sample of groups listed on the SPLC site:
Westboro Baptist Church (of godhatesfags.com fame, among others)
Aryan Nations Youth Action Corps
National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Northern Hammerskins (racist skinhead crew)
I find it interesting that rather than try to distance themselves from the groups on the SLPC's list, these folks just scream liberal-conspiracy and claim that the list targets innocent conservative groups. I've got news for you, the conservative movement really doesn't need these kinds of "conservatives".
By the way, why does anyone have to "resist the imposition of anti-Christian regulations and statutes on free people."? If you want to live your life and base your decisions on Christian values, go ahead. That's not what this means though, does it. It means that people who want to force their religion on others get mad when they're told to stop. Freedom to practice your religion does not include the right to make others live by the tenets you follow. It only allows you to follow those tenets yourself.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.